The Art of Reselling: Finding Value in Forgotten Items
Over the years, my husband and I have gathered more things than we truly need. Recently, like TODAY, it became clear: it's time to let some of it go.
Instead of donating, we called a friend who has just started reselling at a few flea market booths around town. She came by this afternoon, excited to see what speaks to her.
She doesn’t craft, she curates. And I love watching her booths come alive with her ability to decorate a small space with forgotten things, that somehow hold all those stories of what once was.
She's really a rescuer.
Where I see clutter, she sees possibility.
I don't have that knack.
I have to have a lot of space to think and be, and I can't seem to get past the clutter part of the curation process to be any good at it.
It just makes me want to run away and throw away!
To her, discarded objects hum with a faint memory of what they once meant, and what they still might mean to someone new.
When someone picks up an item in her booth and says, “This belongs with me now,” the story of the thing continues.
I find that very comforting.
I asked her why she loves it so much, even though it’s just a side gig. She recognizes that she is good at it, and has an eye for what people want.
And she is meeting some really great people, too.
What she is doing is a nice service for people like me, whose inclination is to just take it to the dump.
I'm definitely not in favor of doing that, because I want to see it reused and loved too.
I just don't want to take the time to curate and sell it.
And I have some furniture that needs a new home, but listing stuff on Facebook Marketplace is too sketchy for me.
It's nice that she's doing this, and I'm happy to support her new business.
She asked me to be on the lookout for vintage slips and old rolling pins, since those are evidently hot items in the resell market.
Who knew?
That’s who she is, though, a rescuer. And her creativity shows up in curation, which is truly an art form.
She knows value is never truly gone.
It’s simply waiting for the right eyes to see it and the right hands to take it away.
Random fact about me: I probably spend more per month feeding birds than on my own personal care.
